


the hardest of hearts

by Rupzydaisy



Series: the haruspices sing on [2]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, it’s a symbol of your mother’s desperation for you, loving gesture - hateful gesture, s1ep3, spy-flies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21521527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: After Lyra runs, Marisa is left to her own aftermath and finds a new direction in her desperation..There is a lot a woman with her ability and power could do. It is astounding that she takes such a drastic, forbidden measure, all for the sake of a child.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Marisa Coulter
Series: the haruspices sing on [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609966
Comments: 6
Kudos: 67





	the hardest of hearts

Marisa thinks about it often, in the hours after Lyra runs away. Or rather, the thought haunts her. In her absence, the apartment becomes too quiet and the emptiness of the recently furnished bedroom is stark. It feels as visceral as a slap in the face whenever Marisa walks past the open door of Lyra's bedroom. 

So instead, she sits on the cold tiles in the bathroom and reminds herself of the childish smile, the upturned nose, her loud voice, and her soft wonder at everything new and shiny. Surrounded by stale, petrifying scholars within Jordan College’s walls, the mere hint of colour and extravagance she had tasted must have seemed like another world entirely. The bathroom alone had garnered almost infinite levels of appreciation. She had played with the taps and run her hands over the neat rows of perfumed bottles and soap on the counter. 

Marisa had been taken in by Lyra’s charm, and a lesser woman would have admitted to certain walls and barriers being dropped as well; luckily, she was not one.

When girl was wrapped into a fluffy bathrobe and sent off back to her room ready for bed, Marisa stayed to clean up the water that had puddled on the floor. The steam on the bathroom walls had condescend and rolled down in small beads, leaving thin trails on the white tiles. Her backs of her hands were still coated in a film of soap bubbles that were evaporating out of existence, leaving them cool but she had hardly noticed. 

That thought occurred to her first then, while she washed Lyra's hair, her daughter's hair. Marisa had smiled along, listening to the half-truths and exaggerated tales of doing this-and-that back in Oxford while the filigree strands inside her head tangled together and hollowed her out from underneath her ribs. 

She could feel guilty. 

With her soapy hands in Lyra's hair, in that moment, she blinked and imagined Lyra's little face; her wide, dark eyes _,_ her lips pressed together in fear and her daemon small and pressed close to her neck or cheek as a Gobblers net fell down on her, just one of the many children that have been taken for the greater good, for their own good. Marisa blinked, breathed in the humid air, and imagined a muffled scream. 

Her imagination rolled through the motions; there would be frantic searching, scholars leaving their desks to comb the corridors and hidden nooks around Jordan College. A frantic, flustered Master calling her down there and speaking to her. She wonders if it would be before sending word to _him_ , or after. 

She _could_ feel guilty.

But guilt is for people who have _something_ to feel guilty about. 

Her work is important. She brings order to chaos, meaning where there is only silence. 

Now with Lyra gone she sits in an empty flat, alone except for her daemon who watches her with his beady eyes from the windowsill. Those soulful eyes strike down deep into her - _disdain, contempt, scorn?_ Marisa imagines, if she were a man, if she were as arrogant as _him,_ she'd feel righteous. 

There would be nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. 

Marisa finally rises to her feet and walks to Lyra’s bedroom with leaden feet and numb limbs. Without thinking, she sits on the bed. Seconds pass, and they could turn into minutes or hours without her knowing. Her eyes water, and her breath catches when she looks up and sees a figure in the window. It is her own reflection but for a brief moment she thinks she sees her mother with thin-pressed lips, having judged and found failure. 

Her monkey lets out a soft moan, kneading its paw into the plush carpet. 

If only the apartment wasn’t empty. If only she hadn’t let herself get carried away with fanciful thoughts. What strange power the child had over her after mere days in her company, to be able to inspire a spark of a long-suppressed, weak, emotion. Marisa loathes to admit the effect on her when it should have been her moulding, shaping, transforming the girl. As an adult, a full-grown woman, as her _mother_ , she wonders if there should have been some sort of immunity to her. 

Her fingers brush over the covers. The satin is cool and slips under her touch. She had ordered specially, fussing over the right shade of blue. From the silk pillows to the curtains, and all the little touches in between that she had straightened out before taking the airship to Oxford, they were all supposed to make things easier. Lyra was supposed to have decided to stay, to leave Oxford and the flimsy excuse of scholastic sanctuary behind her. In time she would have learnt the truth about her mother, the reality of her father, and accepted it with the understanding of a mature young lady. One who could continue her mother’s work. Or, Marisa had thought Lyra would at the very least come to understand what it meant to be the daughter of Mrs Coulter. 

Her anger flares, rising until it is all consuming; hot, violent, and tainted with a hundred distasteful shades. The child had hardly crossed her thoughts over the years, but now she’s all Marisa can think about. The loss sends a sharp pain somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. Her fingers pause over the soft cover. Then they curl. Her grip tightens until the fabric is bunched into her fists and she begins to rent and tear, a whirlwind of action until she comes to a dead stop, gulping air as though it could chase these feelings away. 

Marisa turns to her monkey and asks herself, “Is this how it is?” 

The monkey blinks and reaches out to touch a falling feather cast out from a pillow. 

It is a true temptation; yet another thought returns to her, a dangerous and blinding idea. The Magisterium held vast, all-encompassing powers, but also hidden strengths. Inside the bowels of its many headed institutions it contained fiercely guarded secrets and knowledge that could threaten its carefully controlled order, or even overhaul the rules and regulations which have silently kept the world running for centuries. These secrets are like wildfire, meticulously discovered or bought or stolen away to be hoarded and used when only they see fit. 

Over the years Marisa heard stories from her brother, of a twin set of spy flies created in a cesspit of heresy. A wretch of a man had somehow learnt to harvest an undying, malevolent spirit from a far-off land and welded it to the heart of a mechanical inset which could seek anyone in the world and return with news. He only had time to repeat the experiment once more, to create a second, as once the Magisterium had been sent word of its existence, they were confiscated and locked in one of the deeper vaults, deemed too powerful to be destroyed and too dangerous to fall into any else’s hands. 

Now that her anger had faded back to a trickle inching its way through her veins, ebbing slowly back under the vice-like grip of the cool control, Marisa can think with clarity again. She considers this idea once again without emotion urging her forwards, and finds her priorities remain the same. It is one thing to reword a rotten past or regret spilled words, it is another thing entirely to bend Magisterium rules fully knowing the consequences. She feels no guilt to think about these things, although knows she could be perceived a traitor for deviating from the remits she had clawed out from obscurity, or worse, as being weak. But in her desperation, Marisa finds a new well of strength she can draw deep from. It is unflinching, unceasing, and untested; Heaven help anyone who stands in her way. 

There is a lot a woman with her ability and power could do. It is astounding that she takes such a drastic, forbidden measure, all for the sake of a child. 


End file.
